Tiberius had in the meantime finished dedicating the temples in Campania. He had also issued an edict advising people that his peace was not to be disturbed, and crowds of townspeople were kept at bay by soldiers stationed for that purpose. Even so, his distaste for the municipal towns, colonies, and everything lying on the mainland led him to shut himself away on the island of Capreae, which is separated from the tip of the promontory of Surrentum by a strait three miles wide. I am inclined to believe that it was the solitude that pleased him most: surrounded by the sea, the island has no harbours and barely any havens even for smaller craft, and no one could put in there without a sentry knowing about it. The climate is mild during winter because of a mountain barrier by which it is protected from savage gales, and in summer the island is delightful because it is exposed to the west wind and surrounded by open sea. In addition, it enjoyed the view of a beautiful bay, until Mt. Vesuvius’ eruptions changed the landscape. Tradition has it that Greeks colonized the area, and that Capreae was inhabited by the Teleboans. At this time, however, it was Tiberius who settled there, occupying twelve villas, individual structures with their own names and, as totally as he had been engrossed with public affairs, he now similarly relaxed into private extravagances and pernicious leisure. For there still remained his excessive tendency to suspicion and credulity. This Sejanus had persistently cultivated in Rome, as well, and now he was stoking it more fiercely, his traps for Agrippina and Nero no longer kept a secret. Soldiers, assigned to the two, would take note of messages and visits they received, and all their open and private activities, as accurately as for a work of history. Men were actually given the task of advising them to seek refuge with the armies in Germany, or to embrace the statue of the deified Augustus when the Forum was particularly crowded, and call on the people and Senate for help. Such courses of action were rejected, but they were charged with intending to accept them. (tr. John C. Yardley)

That same year a people beyond the Rhine, the Frisians, abandoned their peace, more through our rapacity than because they were chafing at their subjection. Drusus had levied from them a modest tribute, taking account of their straitened circumstances: their payment was to be oxhides for military use. However, nobody had paid attention to the firmness or measurements of the hides until Olennius, a man of senior centurion rank who had been appointed to govern the Frisians, chose the skin of the auroch as the yardstick of acceptability. That would even have posed a problem for any other tribes, but in the case of the Germans it was particularly difficult to tolerate in that, while they have woods teeming with huge beasts, their domestic animals are quite small. At first, they were surrendering just the oxen; then it was their lands; and finally it was their wives or children delivered into slavery. From this came rage and protests; and when no relief arrived, war was the solution. The soldiers who were there to take the tribute were kidnapped and nailed to gibbets. Olennius escaped the fury of the Frisians by flight, and was taken in at a fortress called Flevum. There a unit of no mean size, comprising citizens and allies, stood watch over the Ocean coastline. (tr. John C. Yardley)

Truth, too, suffered in various ways, thanks first to an ignorance of politics, which now lay outside public control; later came a passion for flattery, or else a hatred of autocrats. Thus, among those who were hostile or subservient, neither extreme cared about posterity. However, although the reader can easily discount a historian’s flattery, there is a ready audience for detraction and spite. Adulation bears the ugly taint of subservience, but malice gives the false impression of being independent. As for myself, Galba, Otho and Vitellius were known to me neither as benefactors nor as enemies. My official career owed its beginning to Vespasian, its progress to Titus and its further advancement to Domitian. I have no wish to deny this; but writers who claim to be honest and reliable must not speak about anybody with either partiality or hatred. If I live, I propose to deal with the reign of the deified Nerva and the imperial career of Trajan. This is a more fruitful and less thorny field, and I have reserved it for my old age. Modern times are indeed happy as few others have been, for we can think as we please, and speak as we think. (tr. Kenneth Wellesley, revised by Rhiannon Ash)

But neither human resourcefulness nor the emperor’s largesse nor appeasement of the gods could stop belief in the nasty rumour that an order had been given for the fire. To dispel the gossip Nero therefore found culprits on whom he inflicted the most exotic punishments. These were people hated for their shameful offences whom the common people called Christians. The man who gave them their name, Christus, had been executed during the rule of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilatus. The pernicious superstition had been temporarily suppressed, but it was starting to break out again, not just in Judaea, the starting point of that curse, but in Rome, as well, where all that is abominable and shameful in the world flows together and gains popularity. And so, at first, those who confessed were apprehended, and subsequently, on the disclosures they made, a huge number were found guilty—more because of their hatred of mankind than because they were arsonists. As they died they were further subjected to insult. Covered with hides of wild beasts, they perished by being torn to pieces by dogs; or they would be fastened to crosses and, when daylight had gone, burned to provide lighting at night. Nero had offered his gardens as a venue for the show, and he would also put on circus entertainments, mixing with the plebs in his charioteer’s outfit or standing up in his chariot. As a result, guilty though these people were and deserving exemplary punishment, pity for them began to well up because it was felt that they were being exterminated not for the public good, but to gratify one man’s cruelty. (tr. John C. Yardley)

He himself, to create the impression that no place gave him equal pleasure with Rome, began to serve banquets in the public places and to treat the entire city as his palace. In point of extravagance and notoriety, the most celebrated of the feasts was that arranged by Tigellinus; which I shall describe as a type, instead of narrating time and again the monotonous tale of prodigality. He constructed, then, a raft on the Pool of Agrippa, and superimposed a banquet, to be set in motion by other craft acting as tugs. The vessels were gay with gold and ivory, and the oarsmen were catamites marshalled according to their ages and their libidinous attainments. He had collected birds and wild beasts from the ends of the earth, and marine animals from the ocean itself. On the quays of the lake stood brothels, filled with women of high rank; and, opposite, naked harlots met the view. First came obscene gestures and dances; then, as darkness advanced, the whole of the neighbouring grove, together with the dwelling-houses around, began to echo with song and to glitter with lights. (tr. John Jackson)

At this juncture, for no visible reason, the statue of Victory at Camulodunum fell down – with its back turned as though it were fleeing the enemy. Delirious women chanted of destruction at hand. They cried that in the local senate-house outlandish yells had been heard; the theatre had echoed with shrieks; at the mouth of the Thames a phantom settlement had been seen in ruins. A blood-red colour in the sea, too, and shapes like human corpses left by the ebb tide, were interpreted hopefully by the Britons – and with terror by the settlers. (tr. Michael Grant)

Nor could you so easily persuade them to cultivate the ground, or to await the return of the seasons and produce of the year, as to provoke the foe and to risk wounds and death: since stupid and spiritless they account it, to acquire by their sweat what they can gain by their blood. (tr. Thomas Gordon)